Defeat Is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musinga, 1896-1931

Lame, Danielle de

doi:10.1093/afraf/adr077

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Though the existing accounts of the formation of the Rwandan state which emphasize its' segmentary nature focus on the second half of the 19th century (Des Forges, 2011;Newbury, 1988) there is a great deal of evidence which speaks to the persistence of these structures. Lemarchand studied in detail the persistence of traditional institutions into the post-independent period even calling the first republic a 'mwamiship' after the name from the king of the pre-colonial Nyiginya kingdom, the mwami.…”

Section: African Social Contracts: Traditional and Modernmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But what does this capacity really constitute? The historical literature shows that the state expanded by embedding itself in pre-existing segmentary lineages (Des Forges, 2011;Newbury, 1988). Where this process had gone on longer, the state was more embedded, and therefore had more state capacity because it was more connected to society and was able to use and activate social networks more effectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Problematizing state capacity: the Rwandan case

Heldring

Robinson

2023

Journal of Institutional Economics

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We argue that the effectiveness of Rwandan governments, both at implementing the 1994 genocide and inducing the current growth miracle, illustrates that the state has high capacity. Yet this capacity is not captured by conventional Weberian concepts, with their focus on taxation and formal bureaucracy. Rather, the capacity of Rwanda's state relies on its ability to leverage dense social networks which connect it to society. The origins of these networks lie in the construction of the historical state which expanded by merging with local lineages and kinship groups. Using data on the historical expansion of the Rwandan state as a proxy for the strength of state–society social networks we show they are uncorrelated with measures of Weberian state capacity. In a fieldwork exercise, we show that rule compliance today is positively correlated with our proxy, but uncorrelated with Weberian state capacity.

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Section: African Social Contracts: Traditional and Modernmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%